


Whatever Remains

by Mount_Seleya



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Bottom!Sherlock, M/M, Not Britpicked, PWP (mostly), Post-Reichenbach, Pre-Series Three, Reunion Sex, Rough Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-18
Updated: 2013-09-18
Packaged: 2017-12-26 22:42:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/971159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mount_Seleya/pseuds/Mount_Seleya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which John Watson chases a ghost one dreary afternoon and ends up finding a miracle instead. Post-Reichenbach reunion porn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whatever Remains

The figure that blurs past as the cab cuts down a side street is less a man than an impression of one: unruly dark hair and a long, pale face framed on either side by the upturned collar of a long charcoal coat.  
  
John's heart seizes in his chest. Frantically, he twists his head around, zeroing in on the retreating figure. His eyes scrunch up, struggling to compensate for the rain streaking the glass of the rear window and the glare of the sky, in the hope that the fuzzy, indistinct smudge of a human being might resolve into someone vaguely familiar.  
  
 _The average human memory on visual matters is only sixty-two-percent accurate_ , a remembered voice tells him.  
  
John jerks his gaze forward again, jaw clenching as he sucks in a sharp, wince-like breath. The last time he saw the ghost of Sherlock Holmes was eight months ago, in a gaunt, hunched man tucked behind a copy of _The Times_ on the tube. He'd been doing so well up until this very moment, had thought that perhaps the strange, indefinable wound Sherlock's fall had torn open inside of him was finally beginning to knit itself together.  
  
Reaching the end of the street, the cab rounds the corner, and John reflexively clutches the grab handle on the door. _But that means your memory's right thirty-eight-percent of the time_ , he thinks, countering the voice in his head.  
  
"Stop," he tells the cabbie, his tone at once unchallengeably firm and edged with quiet desperation. "Stop right here." Plunging his hand into the pocket of his jeans, he retrieves a crumpled twenty pound note, then thrusts it through the opening in the divider window and into the dry, knobby hand of the man behind the wheel. Without a further word, he spills out of the vehicle, slamming the door shut with one hand as he sets his cane on the ground with the other.  
  
Rain batters John's face as he begins to walk, as fast as the push-pump, push-pump rhythm of the cane will allow. He turns the corner back onto the side street just in time to see his quarry disappear through a door to a second-floor flat.  
  
By the time John reaches the door, he's panting from exertion, his wet fringe plastered to his forehead. Blinking to clear the rain from his eyes, he heaves in a long, steadying breath, internally shoring himself against disappointment. But, before he can knock, he hears the descending thud of feet on stairs, and then the door creaks open.  
  
The face that greets him is not a ghost. It is an improbable blend of hard angles and soft curves. It is high cheekbones and a patrician nose and full lips slightly parted with the apparent intent to speak.  
  
It is none other than Sherlock Holmes, blinking, breathing, _alive_.  
  
There is an instant of perfect stillness. The patter of rain seems to fade away, leaving only the quick, pounding rush of blood in John's ears as every emotion he's felt over the last three years comes crashing back into his chest at once. He swallows, blinks, feels his right hand tense around the handle of his cane. Then anger surges to the fore of the emotional torrent, and the cane clatters to the pavement as he rears back a half-step, his left hand balling into a fist.  
  
The blow lands squarely on Sherlock's jaw. Head snapping sideways with a shocked cry, he stumbles back, bumps his ankles into the edge of the bottom step, and goes toppling down onto the stairs in a tangle of dark coat.  
  
John is on Sherlock in a flash. Kicking the door shut behind him, he seizes the prone man roughly by the lapels of his coat, hauling his upper body up off of the stairs. "You were dead," he snarls into Sherlock's face, and it's hard and full of the sort of hot, consuming rage he hasn't felt since Afghanistan.  
  
"I'm sorry to have disappointed you by surviving," Sherlock wheezes in retort.  
  
"You were _dead_ ," John says again with greater force, his grip on Sherlock's coat tightening. "I saw you fall."  
  
"You saw what you were required to see," Sherlock says.  
  
" _Why?_ " John bites out, all the pain he's felt over the last three years seemingly compressed into the single syllable.  
  
The space between Sherlock's brows wrinkles like paper crumpled by a fist. He inhales sharply through his nostrils. "Are you honestly so daft that you cannot deduce the reason for yourself?" he hisses, all cold, clipped fury.  
  
John swallows against the dry lump in his throat. "Answer the question," he demands.  
  
"Three snipers: Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson, and you," Sherlock says. "All ordered to shoot should I fail to jump."  
  
With a soft little huff of understanding, John relaxes his hold on Sherlock's lapels, his hands falling limply to his sides. Sherlock unfolds his legs and pushes himself up onto his feet a little shakily. He casts a brief, inscrutable look down at John where he's still crouching on his knees, then turns and ascends the stairs.  
  
John's mind dances on the knife-edge of indecision for a moment. He watches Sherlock pass through the door at the top of the stairs, tongue darting out to moisten his chapped lower lip in a quick, unconscious swipe. Then, setting his jaw as resolve gels within him, he trudges up the stairs and pushes open the half-ajar door.  
  
The flat is just a single shabby room with an adjoining bathroom. There's a bed, chest of drawers, and desk crowded into one end and a tiny kitchen with only a fridge, stove, and two-foot sliver of counter at the other. The only light is provided by a glaring strip of grey sky peeking through the slightly parted curtains of the room's sole window.  
  
For two full minutes, Sherlock just stands in front of the window, hands steepled together in front of his mouth. Raindrops patter faintly against the glass, slithering down slowly in long, twisting rills.  
  
"Well?" John prompts at last, an edge of wearied impatience in his voice.  
  
Sherlock allows his hands to drop. His neck cuts an elegant arc as he turns his gaze toward John. "I find it odd," he says quietly, "that Moriarty should have perceived this... _thing_ , while you, its object, remain utterly oblivious."  
  
"I don't follow, sorry," John says flatly.  
  
"Sentiment," Sherlock spits, eyes jerking away abruptly as his lips twist into a sneer of distaste. "That there is a single threat which could ever induce me to pay the price that was demanded of me."  
  
John feels a sudden wet prickling at the corners of his eyes. "You unbelievable _prat_ ," he says, small and tremulous. "Three years. _Three bloody years_. Do you have any idea, Sherlock? Any idea at all, what it's been like?"  
  
Sherlock says nothing, just closes the distance between him and John with a few long, swift strides. Gently framing the shorter man's face between his large, warm palms, he bends down and captures his mouth. It's tentative and searching, almost polite, the way Sherlock's lips scrape softly against John's, until something inside of John cracks open like a dam bursting, and he reaches up and fiercely tangles his hands in Sherlock's crown of dark curls. A low, satisfied rumble rises from Sherlock's throat as John's tongue slips between his lips, twining wetly with his own.  
  
"Tell me what you want, John," Sherlock whispers into John's ear when they finally part.  
  
"You," John answers simply.  
  
Seizing his biceps in a strong, sure grip, Sherlock wheels John around and presses him back against the wall. Their eyes lock for an instant, then Sherlock drops to his knees, the skirt of his long coat pooling on the floor.  
  
"How fortuitous that my desires should align so perfectly with yours," Sherlock says in a dark, sonorous purr. Pushing apart the sides of John's rain-damp jacket, he rucks the paste-coloured jumper and chequered shirt to be found underneath up out of the way, then leans in to mouth at the soft trail of fur on John's lower belly.  
  
"Jesus," John gasps, sharp and breathless.  
  
With quick, efficient hands, Sherlock works open John's jeans and tugs down his pants. His pale eyes flick up to meet John's downward-cast gaze as he curls a hand around John's prick and bends to tongue the swollen tip.  
  
"Oh, Christ," John hisses. "Oh, _fuck_."  
  
A bemused smirk briefly twists the curve of Sherlock's mouth. Then the plush lips part obscenely, and John's head falls back against the wall on a long, ragged groan at the heady thrill of wet heat enveloping him. His fingers mesh in Sherlock's hair, slide down the man's scalp to cradle the base of his skull, gentle but insistent.  
  
Sherlock is tortuously methodical, taking John apart with lips and tongue and the barest whisper of teeth, until his hands are trembling and white-knuckled and there are tiny, electric sparks dancing behind his screwed-shut eyes.  
  
Teetering on the edge, John desperately clutches at Sherlock's shoulder, croaking, " _Stop_."  
  
Sherlock obediently pulls back. "You want to fuck me, don't you?" he says in a hushed, rolling baritone.  
  
The way that Sherlock's voice manages to take a word as base as _fuck_ and mold it into something sinuous and beautiful sends a white-hot bolt of pleasure shooting straight to John's leaking prick. "God, yes," he grits out harshly between great, shuddering pants, fingernails biting into his palms as his hands tense into fists.  
  
"Good," Sherlock says, holding John's gaze as he rises to his feet, "because that is precisely what I wish you to do."  
  
By the time John has gathered his faculties enough to begin undressing, Sherlock has already shrugged off his coat and suit jacket, peeled off his tailored shirt, toed off his shoes, and stepped out of his neat black trousers. Lowering himself back onto the bed with a kind of languid ease, he tilts a hooded gaze up at John, lips moist and slightly slack, the long line of his body fish-belly-pale in the blueish half-light filtering in through the gap between the curtains. Then his fingers wrap around his prick, tugging once, twice, three times until at last a deep, throaty moan escapes him.  
  
John is lost at the sound. Finding himself suddenly unable to move, he can only swallow and blink repeatedly, cock poking up between the tails of his half-unbuttoned shirt and sock-shod feet rooted to the floor in the space between where Sherlock's splayed-open legs are hanging off of the edge of the mattress. Something coils around the urgent, sharp-edged need churning in his blood, transmuting it into a feeling that makes his heart ache sweetly.  
  
Then John's muscles unfreeze and he collapses on top of Sherlock. Nuzzling his face up against the left side of Sherlock's neck, he kisses the constellation of moles scattered there, the thrum of blood through the underlying artery echoing the rhythm of the heart he can feel beating as he presses his fingertips to Sherlock's chest.  
  
"Don't you ever — _ever_ — do that to me again," John whispers, a tiny quaver in his voice. "Do you understand?"  
  
"John," Sherlock says simply, low and soft.  
  
"Do you understand?" John repeats, a little more firmly. "I can't...I can't...not again. _Never again_."  
  
Turning his head slightly to the left so that his jaw brushes along John's cheek, Sherlock says, "My dear John."  
  
John's hips jerk forward involuntarily at the soft surrender, striping Sherlock's belly with a long, sticky trail of precome. His teeth clamp down possessively on the tender skin at the juncture of Sherlock's neck and shoulder.  
  
"Fuck!" Sherlock hisses.  
  
"On your belly," John orders in a harsh whisper. He pulls back off of the bed, but moves his hand down to clutch Sherlock's hip tightly, guiding him as he flops over onto his stomach with a winded sound.  
  
"Do it," Sherlock goads breathlessly, drawing one knee up and canting his arse backwards into the air ever-so-slightly.  
  
"No," John says firmly. "Not yet. Not until I've got you ready."  
  
Spitting across two of his fingers, John presses one into Sherlock, gives it a twist, and then introduces the other. Sherlock grunts and gasps and shudders. His hands turn to white-knuckled claws in the bedsheets. John holds him down with an unyielding palm in the small of his back as he works in a third finger.  
  
Finally, after several minutes, John withdraws his fingers. "Do you have a condom on hand?" he asks.  
  
"Don't be ridiculous," Sherlock huffs, rolling over onto his back and pushing himself into the centre of the bed. "I haven't done this since university and I know you've had only one woman in your life in the last three years."  
  
"Let me guess, you gathered that from the washing powder I've been using, or maybe the state of my cuticles."  
  
"I read it on your blog," Sherlock answers drolly.  
  
John gets on the bed, drawing a loud squeak from the mattress, and crawls over to kneel between Sherlock's legs. He reaches down a hand to cup the side of Sherlock's face. Tracing along the sharp contour of one cheekbone with his thumb, he whispers, "Without a proper lubricant, this is going to be rather rough."  
  
"I know," Sherlock says, lips quirking into a grin as he slides a finger down the middle of John's chest.  
  
Nodding, John pulls his hand away, spits into the palm of it, and slicks himself with a rapid succession of strokes. Sherlock slings his long legs into the air and wraps them around his waist. One heel prods John's arse impatiently. John growls as he braces himself over Sherlock with his right hand and guides himself into place with his left. He holds Sherlock's gaze for a moment, then snaps his hips forward, sinking home in three hard thrusts.  
  
Sherlock jolts up off the mattress with a keening cry, hands scrabbling at John's back, but he gathers himself quickly, clamping his mouth shut and sucking in deliberate, measured breaths through his nostrils.  
  
"Oh, God," John moans, slumping forward into Sherlock's shoulder. "Oh, Jesus. Fuck, Sherlock. _Fuck_." It takes every scrap of willpower he has to fight the urge to move that's seemingly screaming at him from every cell in his body. But he manages it, somehow, pressing kisses to the crook of Sherlock's neck until the man's breathing evens out.  
  
Long fingers curve around the back of John's head, pulling him into a fierce, hungry kiss. They linger there for a minute, tongues striving against each other in a slippery, twisting dance as Sherlock's heel kneads John's arse. Then John abruptly tears his mouth away, leaving a thin, quivering thread of spittle hanging between them.  
  
"Hard, John," Sherlock says in a rumbling growl. "I want it _hard_."  
  
John pulls out almost completely and slams back inside. The headboard smacks the wall with a clattering _thud_ , and Sherlock's head lolls back on a strangled moan, nails digging into John's back through his shirt. Propping himself up with one hand, John watches Sherlock's features melt into a picture of pure abandon as he sets a fast, brutal rhythm. Eyelids fluttering shut, Sherlock's lips fall open wantonly, flapping around the shapes of half-formed words.  
  
"Gonna fuck every last thought out of your precious brain," John promises darkly.  
  
"Except _you_ ," Sherlock replies, so quietly it's almost lost over the vicious squeal of bedsprings.  
  
With a rough growl, John plants his knees more firmly on the bed, gripping Sherlock's arse and hauling it into the air. Sherlock's legs cinch more tightly around his waist. Angling his hips _just so_ , John drives into Sherlock forcefully, battering the man's prostate with every thrust and wrenching rich, throaty mewls out of him.  
  
Sherlock's eyes crack open to meet John's, the pupils blown wide, like moons eclipsing a pair of silver-grey suns. "John," he says, a soft, shuddering whisper as he reaches down to take his cock in his hand.  
  
The strain of holding Sherlock's lower half up off of the bed causes the scar on John's left shoulder to flare up. Clenching his jaw, he beats the mounting pain to the back of his mind, narrows his focus to Sherlock and the velvet heat of his arse and the pale column of his neck and the dark curls plastered to his sweat-slick forehead. Adjusts the tempo of his thrusts to bring them into sync with the frantic blur of Sherlock's jerking hand.  
  
"Jesus, look at you," John says. "Just — just _look_ at you. Utterly undone. _Christ_."  
   
Suddenly, Sherlock sucks in a deep breath, as though he's about to plunge underwater. His eyes go saucer-wide for an instant, then screw shut as he stiffens and shudders and comes with a long, stuttering groan.  
  
John manages a few more short, erratic thrusts before collapsing forward, flattening Sherlock against the bed. He shoves in one final time, as deep as he can go, his release tearing through his body like an electric shock. "Fuck, Sherlock, Jesus-bloody-fucking-Christ, yes," he hisses, pulsing and pulsing until there's nothing left.  
  
Afterward, they remain together, listening to the patter of rain on the window and the soft sound of their breathing. John nuzzles his face into Sherlock's neck, pressing a moist tattoo to the man's skin with his lips while one long-fingered hand cards through his hair and the other traces slow, lazy circles on his back through his sweat-damp shirt.  
  
"Good?" John hazards after a while.  
  
"Very," Sherlock answers.  
  
John swallows, then draws a long, slow breath. "I never expected... _this_."  
  
"Which part? Discovering me alive and well, or shagging me six ways to Sunday?"  
  
There's a dismissive flippancy in Sherlock's tone that makes John's gut twist in anger. "Both, actually," he snaps.  
  
Sherlock snorts. "Oh, but we've been dancing around it from the very start, haven't we? The fact that your spent cock is up my arse at the moment should put paid to any further professions of heterosexuality on your part."  
  
John inhales sharply. "That's not..." he begins, trailing off.  
  
"What?" Sherlock asks, the edge of impatience in his tone sharpening.  
  
"Your eyes," John says, his voice catching. "I'm constantly seeing your eyes. No light. No spark. Just... _nothing_."  
  
For a minute, Sherlock remains silent, lightly caressing around the shell of John's ear with the pad of his thumb. At last, he releases a soft sigh and says, "I'm not going to apologize for doing what was necessary, John."  
  
"Necessary?" John balks. But in the time it takes him to blink, swallow, and blink again, he shuts away his hurt. "Right. Of course. All part of beating Moriarty at his game. I understand now."  
  
Sherlock clutches at John, but John pushes him away and pulls out abruptly, eliciting a sharp wince from Sherlock. Clambering off of the bed, John stumbles across the room, bends to retrieve his tangled pants and jeans from the floor. He pulls them on with the brisk efficiency of a soldier, then turns to doing up the open buttons of his shirt, cursing under his breath when he notices a crusting smear of Sherlock's come on the lower half of the garment.  
  
The bed creaks slightly as Sherlock pushes himself into an upright position. "John," he says.  
  
"Piss off," John snarls, reaching down to pick up his jumper.  
  
"John," Sherlock says again.  
  
John's fingers clench into a fist, then loosen completely, allowing the jumper to fall back to the floor. He turns around, swipes his hand across his mouth as if to clear the way for words, but nothing comes out except a creaky laugh.  
  
" _John_ ," Sherlock says a third time, the urgency in his voice unmistakeable.  
  
"You thought it'd be easy, didn't you?" John accuses, letting his gaze wander to where Sherlock is kneeling on the bed. "That you could just return from the fucking dead and everything would instantly be patched up?"  
  
"I am not sorry for valuing your life more than your _feelings,_ ” Sherlock says savagely.  
  
With a resigned sigh, John shuffles back over to the bed, sitting down on the edge. He lets his face drop into his hands, counts every breath for one minute, two, sensing the prickle of Sherlock's gaze on the back of his neck.  
  
"I don't know where we go from here, Sherlock," John confesses at last. "It's not going to be the same."  
  
The mattress protests as Sherlock shifts closer to John. "It would be unimaginably boring if it were."  
  
John lets his hands fall to curl limply in his lap. He flicks his tongue across his lower lip. "I moved out of Baker Street."  
  
"I know," Sherlock says, his left hand settling tentatively on John's right shoulder.  
  
"It just wasn't right without an annoying dick around to fill the fridge with body parts and play violin at all hours."  
  
Sherlock lets out a soft snort of amusement. His grip on John's shoulder tightens minutely.  
  
"Mrs. Hudson hasn't let the flat," John says. "We had to bin your experiments, but otherwise nothing's been touched."  
  
"Good," Sherlock pronounces, leaning in to tease his lips across the short, bristly hairs at the nape of John's neck. "We should be installed in 221B again by the end of the month. There's only one final loose end I need to tie up first."  
  
"Not how it's going to happen," John says, giving his head a small, sharp shake.  
  
A sharp exhalation gusts across the back of John's neck. "Fine," Sherlock says tightly. "We needn't return to our previous living arrangement — I merely thought it might be preferable, under the current circumstances."  
  
John twists around, folding one leg up onto the bed, his knee encroaching between Sherlock's crouching thighs. His heart stutters as he drinks in the geometry of Sherlock's half-lit face, the way that shadows pool like water beneath the china-fine crests of his cheekbones and in the elegant, flaring divot of his philtrum.  
  
"Together," he says. "Whatever you've got to do, we do it together, risk be damned. Understand?"  
  
Sherlock tips his chin up slightly. His gaze bores into John, weighing alternatives, foreseeing contingencies. John braces for the worst, but after half a minute, Sherlock nods his head and quietly tells him, "All right."  
  
John blinks his eyes, lets a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding rush out of him in a tiny, relieved gasp. Lifting his left hand, he presses his fingertips to Sherlock's shoulder, grazes them down along the slant of his collarbone. Sherlock tilts away from the touch, too slowly and fluidly for him to be recoiling, and as he digs his heels into the mattress and wriggles his way to the head of the bed, John clambers after him on hands and knees. They end up lying parallel to each other, limbs entangled, faces so close that their noses are just centimetres apart.  
  
"You do realize that you've complicated a meticulously-laid plan?" Sherlock quietly bemoans.  
  
"Tomorrow," John whispers, letting his palm wander idly down Sherlock's flank. "We can deal with all that tomorrow."  
  
Outside, rain continues to beat down on the city, and the grey-hung sky darkens with the approach of night.

**Author's Note:**

> I originally planned to include a scene at the beginning establishing that John was either: A) on his way to an appointment with his therapist, or B), going to pick up Harry and Clara's dog so he could petsit while they were on vacation (the couple's reconciliation serving as a kind of thematic parallel/foreshadowing of John and Sherlock's). Ultimately, however, I decided that too much set-up spoiled the momentum I wanted to have at the outset of the fic.
> 
> There was also going to be an awkwardly funny scene at the end in which a certain umbrella-wielding government official who's been keeping a watchful eye on John turned up outside the apartment (a dropped cane left lying in the middle of the sidewalk signals the sudden resolution of John's psychosomatic limp signals the return of Sherlock). But I decided that this ran completely counter to the quiet note on which I wanted to end, i.e. "just the two of us," no "against the rest of the world" yet.


End file.
